Day Six
by Saulie
Summary: He always keeps the headset on. Mello & Matt have a quick conversation. About Misa. Sort of.


(A little askew and a little AU, this one, but what the hell. XD This is for Acey Dearest because talking with her always makes me wanna write these guys. Just messing around. Acey, I integrated a little from an old drabble I found into the dialogue, if it sounds familiar…)

Maybe it's better this way, Matt thinks, surrounded by equipment and the jagged remains of broken laws. Sure makes it easier. Back _then, _before all this Kira crap, it was one weird indulgent thing, but now it's another. …yeah, you can say that again.

He's not exactly Mello's wingman by grace of being number 3 at this point; not what he used to be; not the wisecracking Leporello left back at the estate as Mello marched off to Hell at a spectral Kira's command. Or, hell, maybe it was L's ghost egging him on. Maybe both. Matt quit theorizing after the first year, kind of. At any rate—now he's Mello's last man standing, and who needs eye contact making that complicated?

He sticks with this for now. Mello's voice as it first got him here; distant, confident, sharp, apart.

"Hey, Matt."

He always keeps the headset on. "Yeah?"

"Anything interesting?"

Matt rolls his eyes, forgetting Mello can't see it. "Not even close. How about you?"

"Just Amane."

"Ah, come on." –cracking an unseen smile that's almost a leer; wondering if it shows in his voice. "_Amane's _pretty _interesting—"_

"—shut up." …Oh, yeah it does. Matt grins, listening. "What is it with you and Amane?"

"She's a cute Japanese girl. What's not to like? Aside from the whole Kira thing," he adds as an afterthought.

Mello snorts. "You have to ask?"

"Uh, yeah. That's why I—"

"You're dumb for a smartass." A crinkling sound—chocolate wrapper, probably. "She's a, what. A zealot. It's _annoying._"

"That's the Kira thing," Matt argues. "What _else?" _

"She's not _just _zealous about Kira."

"Oh, you don't _know _that—"

"Yes I damn well do. From what we've seen so far. It's _really _obvious."

"Whatever." A yawn. "—what's so wrong with that, anyway?"

"—what?"

"What's the problem." He says it with a shrug. "I mean, your…zealotry…or whatever…it's just giving a whole lot of damn about something. Y'know. Not that bad."

…Wait a minute, what the—

"There's a line…"

--hell is he saying, anyway?

"…between—aaah, worship and persistence are completely fucking different. You know?"

"Hell if I know. If you wanted to play psychologist you should've stayed at Wammy's, they had us analyze that kind of crap all the time."

…Matt bites his lip, after the fact—Mello's breathing over the phone, and the silence—well, it's soaked in very sour annoyance, at least. Should've known better than to bring up Wammy's with Mello, but, what the hell; if the guy was still dealing with his fucking inferiority complex it wasn't _his _problem.

--it's like Mello's waiting for an explanation, yeah. No, it's like he's got nothing else to say, that he's decided to drop the—_aw, man, come on, Mello, don't get off the phone, I'm so bored over here. _…Maybe he's doing that thing where he's thinking himself halfway to hell. Matt knows, Mello does that a lot.

"…Okay," he says, finally, with a little laugh, "I get it, I get it, you don't want me looking at Amane, you jealous ass."

"…If you have to shoot her, do it."

What.

"…say what?"

"Shoot her if you have to. Zealots are fucking dangerous and we don't need any more of them running around that we can't predict."

"…Shooting pretty girls kind of makes me wince, y'know." He's certainly wincing now. Jesus.

"Yeah. I know." Matt shapes Mello's smile in his mind, from the tone of that, and he's not sure he likes it—makes him wary. "Means you should do it more often."

"You don't mean that."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

"Like hell. How long's it been?"

"Three years."

"Yeah."

"Doesn't matter."

Mello tells him to go to hell, but Matt knows he doesn't mean it—Matt knows, for once, that he's completely right. As far as he's concerned, Mello's the same person he's always been, three years' worth of shit notwithstanding. _That's _what—

"Amane's not the girl we're after, anyway."

"She's not?" What the…hasn't he…well, there's that chick Takada. Maybe—seriously, though, that's nuts. "What're you—"

"Not—look, I'll call you in a few days. 'Til then, stay incognito and don't do anything stupid."

Mello always hangs up the phone without saying a damn thing.

_Don't do anything stupid, huh. _

Not that tall of an order.

(Except that it sort of is.)

He feels the headset making indentations 'round his ears that itch, a little. The room's vibrating; a car's driving by—outside where he definitely isn't. He needs something to do with his hands. Above his head the fan is twirling lazy circles. He's grabbing his Game Boy Advance and noticing (_dammit_) that the screen says _game over; _he looked away for…what. A minute? Two? and now he's run clean out of lives.


End file.
